Local History: Canandaigua's first village president

Nathaniel Howell was a pivotal figure in the early days of Canandaigua, as a judge, "president" (these days, mayor) and as representative on the state and national levels.

By Lynn Paulson City of Canandaigua historian

Canandaigua was founded as a District in 1789, with the Town of Canandaigua being officially created in 1791 and the Village of Canandaigua being officially created in 1815. Thus, between 1789 and 1814, there was no distinction made between the village and the town.

The New York State Legislature created Ontario County in 1789, and it included all the land west of Seneca Lake to the Niagara River and from Lake Ontario south to the Pennsylvania border. Fourteen counties were carved from the county between 1796 and 1823, creating the current size of Ontario County. Canandaigua emerged as the county seat and constructed the first court house in 1794 located on the public square where the current court house stands today.

In 1795, Nathaniel Howell agreed to serve as the circuit judge for a case in Canandaigua. He tried the first jury trial in that Canandaigua Court House involving the matter of a stolen cow bell. Howell fell in love with the beauty and society of Canandaigua and decided that he would make it his home.

Nathaniel Woodhull Howell was born in Blooming Grove, Orange County, New York on Jan. 1, 1770. He attended a grammar school in Goshen, New York and eventually graduated from Princeton University in 1788. He had charge of an academy in Montgomery, New York until 1792, when he informally began the study of law. In the fall of 1792, he entered the office of Josiah Hoffman of New York City, where he diligently pursued his preparatory law courses. He was licensed as an attorney of the Supreme Court in October 1794. He began his professional practice in Tioga, New York and planned on settling there. However, in May 1796, Nathaniel Howell arrived in Canandaigua and accepted an offer from Charles Williamson of Geneva, New York to act as his attorney and counsel for his agency at a salary of $124 per year. Williamson was the land agent for the Pulteney Associates who sold off much of the remaining lands in the former Phelps-Gorham Purchase.

In 1798, Nathaniel Howell married Sally Chapin, the daughter of General Israel Chapin, and they moved into their newly constructed home in 1799.

The Howell residence was a large two-story building with two one-story balanced wings, standing 15 or 20 feet back from the east side of North Main Street just south of where Howell Street is today. A little farther north from the residence was Mr. Howell’s law office. Unfortunately, Mrs. Sally Howell died in 1808. With two young children to be raised, Mr. Howell remarried in 1809 to Fanny Coleman. They raised four additional children in the Howell residence. The second Mrs. Howell died in 1842, and Mr. Howell remained in his residence until his death in 1851.

The Howell residence, when built in 1799, was the only house on the east side of North Main Street between what is now Dungan Street and Fort Hill Avenue. After Mr. Howell’s death the house was cut into parts and moved. The central portion, which had become three stories, was moved east on Dungan Street and turned to face north. One of the wings was relocated to the corner of Dungan and Hubbell streets, and the other wing is believed to be located on Chapel Street.

In addition to his duties as a lawyer, Nathaniel Howell became very involved in the civic life of his community and state. In 1799, he was appointed assistant attorney general for the western counties of New York state, the duties of which office he continued to discharge until his resignation in 1802. He was a representative in the New York State Assembly in 1804, and from 1813 to 1814 he represented the congressional district composed of Ontario County and the five counties west of it in the Congress of the United States.

One of his most notable civic contributions to Canandaigua was to help organize the village of Canandaigua’s government that was incorporated on Jan. 1, 1815. A Board of Trustees consisting of Nathaniel Howell, James Smedley, Thaddeus Chapin, Moses Atwater and Phineas P. Bates officially separated the village from the Town of Canandaigua. For his leadership in this effort, they elected Nathaniel Howell to be the first Village of Canandaigua President [or should we say “mayor”].

Under the first Constitution of the State of New York, Ontario County like others of the state had a Court of Common Pleas, which was continued down from the colonial period, presided over by a First Judge [this is a title, not a numerical order] and his assistants. These judges were appointed by the Governor and Senate for a term of five years. In 1819, Governor DeWitt Clinton nominated and the New York State Senate confirmed Nathaniel Howell a First Judge of Ontario County. He replaced John Nicholas, who had been appointed in 1803. Interestingly, the first First Judge of Ontario County was Oliver Phelps, who was appointed in 1789.

For the first five years of his official term, Judge Howell held his courts in the first Court House built in 1794 on the east side of the public square. When the second Court House [current day City Hall] was built in 1824-25 on the corner of North Main Street and Cross Street [now West Avenue], Judge Howell presided in it until his retirement in 1833. It was in this Court House that the portrait gallery that is now in the current Ontario County Court House was started with the portraits of Oliver Phelps, Nathaniel Gorham and Nathaniel Howell.

Former Canandaigua Academy Principal Noah T. Clarke summed up the nature of Judge Howell this way, “Judge Howell combined in his intellectual and personal character many of the strongest moral qualities. His mind was eminently judicial. His grasp of thought was ready and clear, and his language was brief and incisive. His knowledge of law was full and available, and his illustrations in his addresses to jurors were drawn largely from the common operations of the farm and shop, and were presented so clearly that none could fail to see the exact meaning of his words. His integrity was of the highest type.”

In the first half of the 1800s, our county had a very high reputation for the character of its legal profession. Outside of the cities of New York and Albany, no county, except possibly Oneida, could boast of so high an order of legal talent as the county of Ontario. Judge Nathaniel Howell was amongst those legal scholars. He was awarded an LL. D honorary degree from Hamilton College in 1827. Among his colleagues and friends were two Canandaigua lawyers who also were in a legal partnership with him at one time, John Greig and Walter Hubbell. As a prominent and respected lawyer Howell handled many lucrative land deals for foreign-owned companies.

One of the famous trials in which Judge Howell was involved was the Morgan trial, actually several trials, some held in Canandaigua and some in Lockport. One of these cases was brought before the county under Judge Howell on August 22, 1828. These cases involved the abduction of William Morgan, who had written several articles exposing the secretive nature of the freemasonry movement. When the accused received relatively light sentences since Morgan’s body was never definitely located, reactions to the court’s decisions resulted in the eventual formation of the Anti-Masonic Party that is considered the first third-party movement in U.S. history.

After the expiration of his official term as First Judge of Ontario County in 1833, Nathaniel Howell gave up most of his legal practice, spending time mostly overseeing his farm, orchards and gardens. At that time his property extended from the east side of North Main Street all the way eastward to the East Street boundary of the village. For many years Mr. Howell was the treasurer of the Canandaigua Academy private school until his death in 1851. After Nathaniel Howell’s death on Oct. 15, 1851, his son Thomas Howell had his parents’ home divided and moved to other parts of the village. He opened Howell Street in 1852 on the site of his father’s farm extending from North Main Street to East Street and naming it in honor of his father.

Sources:

Archives of the Daily Messenger

Archives of the Ontario County Historical Society, mainly:

“Canandaigua Sixty Years Ago” by Noah T. Clarke, 1890

"History of Ontario County". by George S. Conover, 1893

"Building Canandaigua: A Collection" by Barbara C. Swartout, 2000

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